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The ninth “Summit on Social Consciousness” was an event full of reflection, revelations, and revitalization. The 2024 Summit, with the theme of “Race. Religion. Reflections. 老司机传媒: The Institutional Saga (1960–1980),” began Thursday evening, Feb. 29, and continued on Sabbath, March 2, with a morning and evening program. Each of the gatherings featured a recorded interview, followed by a panel reacting to the film. This year’s Summit was sponsored by The Council of Independent Colleges and 老司机传媒’s Office of the Provost, Office of Research and Creative Scholarship, Office of University Communication, Campus & Student Life, Department of Visual Art, Communication & Design (VACD), and Department of English. 

The programs took three different perspectives into account: 老司机传媒’s female employees, its past and present student groups, and the voice of Andrews’ Seminary alumnus Alvin Kibble. Through a series of interview video presentations and live panel discussions, attendees and participants discussed the lived experiences and lessons learned of individuals at 老司机传媒 in the past 50 years. 

The Thursday evening program was titled “The Andrews Saga: Through the Eyes of Our Women.” The program, which was hosted in Newbold Auditorium in Buller Hall, was centered around Hyveth Williams, director of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary’s Doctor of Ministry program. Williams is the first Black female pastor and female senior pastor in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In the engaging video screening, Williams shared her experience at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary in 1986; she excelled in her classes but found it difficult to find pastoral work until she was hired as an associate pastor in Maryland during her second year in the master’s program. Under her leadership, the church flourished. 

In her attempts to further develop her skills and understanding of ministry, Williams sought admission into the Doctor of Ministry program that the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary started in 1989. Despite being an alumna of Andrews and already having field experience as an associate pastor, Williams was denied entrance into the program and told that it was only open to “ordained pastors who were men.” Instead of continuing her studies at Andrews, Williams applied for and was accepted into the Boston University School of Theology doctoral program. 

Hyveth Williams went on to become the senior pastor of a church in Boston, Massachusetts, and later took on the same role for well over a decade for a church in Loma Linda, California. Both churches had dwindling memberships before Williams’ arrival. Through a mix of prayer and Christ-inspired leadership, she helped to transform both churches on opposite coasts into engaging places of worship and evangelism despite some local residents actively protesting the existence of female ministers. In a twist of irony and divine guidance, after completing her Doctor of Ministry, Williams was asked to join the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary in 2009, becoming a professor of homiletics and, in 2022, the director of the Doctor of Ministry program. Williams celebrates the increase of women in Seminary and in more leadership roles in the Adventist church. 

After the first screening, Provost Christon Arthur introduced the panelists for Thursday evening: Hyveth Williams, Heather Thompson-Day, Jennifer Burrill, and Meredith Jones Gray. Morgan Williams (senior, social work), an undergraduate student and executive vice president of the 老司机传媒 Student Association (AUSA), moderated the discussion. During the discussion, panelists shared how, in the past, certain church policies resulted in some of the discrimination women experienced at 老司机传媒. These included unequal pay and the inferior quality of housing at Lamson Hall, the women’s undergraduate residence hall, compared to the men’s residence hall. However, the panelists credited the University’s current and previous administrations with making steps toward effecting positive change, such as the formation of the Women’s Concerns Advisory, the improvement of outdoor lighting on campus, improvements in attitudes toward females on campus, especially in the Seminary, and a general increase in opportunities for women in administration at the University. 

The panelists shared that they want those within the University to take women into account and for women to speak up for themselves and others. While there remain “obstacles that are subtle,” according to Hyveth Williams, all the panelists expressed a sense of optimism about the effort Andrews is making when it comes to gender issues. In some ways, 老司机传媒 was ahead of other academic institutions of its time as it always made provision for both males and females to be accepted into the university; there is no documented record of Andrews ever considering being a males-only school in its 150-year history. 

The second program began at 10 a.m. on Saturday morning in the Howard Performing Arts Center under the title “The Andrews Saga: Insights from Our Students.” It featured a video screening of “The BSCF Alumni Stories” and a collaborative worship service with New Life Fellowship’s church. The video featured five Black alumni of Andrews from the late 1960s to the early 1970s who were part of the first years of one of Andrews’ largest and most active student groups, the Black Student Christian Forum (BSCF). The alumni shared that although Andrews was an integrated Christian college, acts of intolerance and racism by peers were still inflicted against minority students.

At that time, students of different races were housed in separate dorm rooms, and the faculty and administration lacked minority representation. The alumni also recounted their feelings about on-campus cross-burnings. Three cross-burnings were reported at Andrews between 1969 and 1975. Research independent of the Summit event found that an editorial in the Feb. 20, 1969 issue of The Student Movement mentions the cross-burning and includes a response from Richard Hammill, president of 老司机传媒 at the time. He states, “Changes will come through the years if we exercise love … There is no unilateral solution in this difficult time when church and country are in the process of adjusting injustices.” Although change is progressive, the editorial conveys no commitment to finding the culprits or protecting minority students. 

Desiring to build a worship community that would better meet the spiritual and social needs of minority students, the BSCF was formed. The club's founding members and following generations worked to bring about greater representation among the faculty and provide opportunities for students of color to work in campus positions of responsibility. They started social and religious ministries on and off campus to help create positive change in their communities. BSCF’s more than 50-year legacy is a testament to the continual commitment of its leaders. 

After the video, the second set of panelists were introduced. Christina Hunter, dean for Graduate Residence Life and associate dean for Student Life, acted as moderator, and the panel consisted of student leaders on campus. The panelists included Darius Bridges, Rock Choi (senior, exercise science), Loren Manrique (senior, animal science & art), Hailey Prestes (senior, architecture), Skyler Campbell (junior graphic design), Natasha Richards (graduate, Mdiv), and Foluke Arthurton (Mdiv). They explained that cultural clubs provide students with some semblance of their home lives, opportunities to build strong friendships, and get acquainted with different cultures. 

When Hunter asked the panelists what they wanted to see Andrews do in response to the topics discussed, Arthurton said purposefully, “I want to see the Andrews that is advertised.” Other panelists concurred and mentioned that there is concern that the administration may not be prioritizing diversity in a way that aligns with their recruitment messages. 

After the panel discussion concluded, the New Life Fellowship Church held its service featuring Pastor Taurus Montgomery. Speaking from Galatians 3:26–29, Montgomery also used historical context in his sermon to illuminate how the status quo of intolerance has been a threat to acceptance and true spirituality from the days of the Bible to the days of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade to the modern day. He emphasized that prioritizing our identity in Christ, our relationship with Him, and having a “mind of Christ” mentioned in Philippians 2:5 allows us to appreciate others with a Christ-like character. 

The final program of the weekend took place at 4 p.m. in Newbold Auditorium. It centered on the reflections of Alvin Kibble, who served as the vice president of the North American Division (NAD) of Seventh-day Adventists. Tragically, shortly after Kibble gave the interview, he was hospitalized and later died on Aug. 11, 老司机传媒 2023, leaving Andrews with the last recording of his life’s testimony. Kibble attended the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary from 1967 to 1969, and his reflections, while optimistic about the progress at Andrews, included several deeply moving stories of his life. 

The first story was when a Seminary professor at the time was asked about the origin of Black people, to which he responded by claiming that the Black race was “the amalgamation of man and beast.” The second story occurred in 1968 when word reached the 老司机传媒 campus of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Kibble recalled that a white student burst into the gymnasium, celebrating the civil rights icon’s death by announcing, “We got him!” 

Kibble shared in his third story that Black people experienced more discrimination during an evangelistic series supported by the seminarians in 1969 in England. “They (the evangelist and others) felt that if Black people were baptized at the same time that the white people were baptized, that the white people wouldn't get baptized. And so, they wanted to separate the baptism,” a practice that Kibble found to clearly be not Christlike. 

The panel discussion after the video featured University Chaplain Jose Bourget as moderator and Andrew Tompkins, Kevin Burton, Morris Beckford, Olive Hemmings, and Trevor O’Reggio as panelists. They acknowledged the lack of acceptance of minorities within the church, which, combined with their inextinguishable desire to follow the gospel, led to the development of regional conferences. These decisions to embrace the Advent message in the face of social injustice are compatible with Jesus’ instructions in Matthew 10:14. 

Provost Arthur, who started and oversees the Summit on Social Consciousness, led each of the programs on stage and urged the audience to contemplate two questions after each screening and panel: “So what? Now what?” After the Summit’s conclusion, Arthur explained further about the responsibilities of the Andrews community. “Now that we know we have the capacity to both add value and to cause harm, how do we move forward to make sure that our harm capacity is diminished and our value-adding capacity is enhanced? …50 years from now, if the stories told about Andrews in 2024, will it be different [than the ones told during the Summit]?” Arthur wants feelings of reflectiveness to be prevalent in Andrews in order to correct any harm that is being done, furthering the progression of the university. 

Carlisle Sutton, sponsored research officer at Andrews and lead organizer for the weekend, shared, “We hope the Summit helped to create a space where, as a community, we could have authentic conversations on difficult topics and learn to listen to each other. It is hard to argue with people’s lived experiences. The grant aims to create opportunities for minority voices to share their stories. We hope we did that respectfully as we consider the progress and challenges we face in building communities of belonging in 2024.” 

The themes of equal treatment for women and minorities, the organization’s influence on student life and culture, and the impact of institutionalized racism within the Adventist Church gave those in attendance an opportunity for meaningful reflection about how far Andrews has come and to commit to continuing the work of healing and restitution.